Day 274: As sick as I've been (still am, on some levels), the gooseberries very nearly got away from me this year. This morning, I forced myself out into the garden with a 4-cup Tupperware bowl which, by the time I was done picking, was brim-full. To put this into perspective, I would normally have picked four or five times, a cup at a time so that the topping-and-tailing part of the procedure only took fifteen minutes per collection. As it was, it took me over an hour to top-and-tail this batch, and there are at least that many more on the bushes to harvest over the next several days. Yes, topping-and-tailing (removing the stem and blossom ends) is a lot of work, and it's arguably one of the main reasons most people don't bother with growing gooseberries (vicious thorns being another), but for those of us who love gooseberry jam, it's worth both the effort and braving the hazards. These now go into the freezer where they'll stay until cooler weather for processing.
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